However, because even democratically elected governments might not always live up to democratic ideals with their specific decisions, this paper instead adopts a more comprehensive and liberal definition of democracy. If one of these two definitions of democracy were adopted, the answer to the research question would be clear: as Germany is a constitutional democracy and Schröder’s government was elected freely and fairly, the Agenda 2010 is democratic.
Most definitions of democracy focus on either constitutional or procedural aspects to determine whether a state system is democratic (Tilly, 2007, p. Finally, the case study of the Agenda reforms will be utilised to explore how the broader tension between market and democratic demands plays out in a competitive and globalised world and what the consequences for democracy are. Then the principal reason why the Agenda is undemocratic will be evaluated. The paper aims to answer the following research question: in what way can the Agenda 2010 be seen as undemocratic and what does it reveal about the contemporary market-politics tension? In the first section, democracy is defined followed by a brief explanation of why the Agenda 2010 came about despite public disapproval. As in the German case, the reform drastically altered the political landscape and led to increasing dissatisfaction with the democratic system itself. It is crucial to understand in what circumstances democratic governments may conduct undemocratic decisions due to economic pressures. In this paper, the Agenda 2010 will be used as a case study to show how market needs and citizens’ demands conflict in a competitive global economy and can lead to undemocratic outcomes by democratically elected officials. Thus, with its Agenda 2010 reform, Schröder’s government prioritised apparent economic needs for less gracious regulation over the popular and, specifically, its electorate’s will. Chancellor Schröder argued that the German welfare state is too gracious and makes the economy uncompetitive on the global market wherefore unemployment benefits should be reduced. Nevertheless, then chancellor Gerhard Schröder enacted the reform between 20 despite stark opposition from the public and within his own Social Democratic Party, the SPD. The object of critique, the Agenda 2010, changed German labour and unemployment laws and was deeply unpopular, as it was expected to increase the hardship of the unemployed.
In the early 2000s, massive demonstrations took through German cities, as protestors criticised the government’s welfare state reform.
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